OK, there's something really bothering me:

All the actors/actresses and crew-members, are they just plain profiles different in everyone's personal database?
So meaning an actor's profile imported from someone that created it
could be different from the one I'd have created for myself for a different movie?

If so... that just doesn't make sense.
If you ask me, the whole cast/crew-area is a serious mess, it functions, but it's inaccurate and inconsistent.

Why isn't there a main database for it just like the movies are online?
I mean, the person is the person is the person, you create their profile with their real name
as the form is in the software, only none of them seem to be filled out.
Also the date or just year of birth, then perhaps the name that they are (mostly) credited as, as an artist.
That's both to have it filled out and to find it easily, because when I fill in their full names,
that's how they are shown in the 'Cast Member'-list, which is sometimes too different.

So I mean, there is no need for all different profiles, they can be fixed to 1 person and be consistent.
Have them locked and only able to edited if necessary, like how someone wants them to be credited for example.
Or you know, when adding them to a cast-list of a film.
But the actor is the actor is the actor, it should be fixed to one fact as it is.

Cast & Crew are profiled on DVD level. I don't know how the data is organized but the basic recognition pattern is:

"It's the same actor if firstname equals firstname, middlename euqals middlename, lastname equals lastname and birthyear equals birthyear". There is no unique Id that identifies an actor from now on until the end of time in DVDP.

For some reason it's only allowed to contribute a birth year if there's the same name for more than one actor.

The common name of the actor is the one that's most often used in the DVDP database (So when the numbers change, the common name changes). If it differs from the actually credited name, use the "credited as" feature.

Cast fotos are copyrighted by the fotographers and thus can't be hosted by Invelos. You either add them by yourself or you use the user created photo database in the General Forum.

Linking the same actor to all his appearances has always been a dire topic in the DVDP database.

If you are willing to settle with "not perfect but working", check out "CastEdit 2" in my "DVD Profiler Tools" signature link.

Quoting Dr Pavlov:

Quote:
Michael:

You haven't been around very long to be sio critical, The system does make sense. I don't know what you mean by Profiles for Actors and crew, we don't have Profiles for them. They appear in movies and that is what we Profile, they may appear inconsistently, Pete in one movie, Peter in the next, we use the film credits to ACCURATELY build the database. But then it depends on how you measure accuracy, you may prefer the complete inaccuracy of something such as IMDb which is not based on any kind of real data, their users are allowed to use their imagination to determine an actor's name without regard to the film credits and they are allowed to use their imagination on roles as well. The Online database is simply a starting point from users then have the ability to customize the data to their choosing.. I suggest the first you should do is sit and read our Contribution Rules, though as a free user, you can't Contribute you should find it helpful.

I have read several of your posts so far and the majority of them leave a bad taste in my mouth. You are coming off like you think you are some sort of God of movies and computers, this progra has been around far longer than you have been a member and it has been built by the combined efforts of thousands of users.

Skip

Below the belt man, don't insult me, don't think you know me.
I'm the complete opposite of what you think I am like.
I live by facts, I just observe and say what I see.
So don't go around calling me some cocky god!

Apparently you don't even get my posts, just read again.

Quoting pdf256:

Quote:

The database is of DVDs, not of actors. The credits of each DVD stand alone so what you want can't be done without big changes to the program and/or database.

pdf

Yes, I understand that.
But, if you want to have the profile accurate, or whatever you want to call it,
wouldn't it be nice if all the cast-people would have their own fixed "module"?

Like... say you have a bunch of movies where one specific actor stars in all of them.
[i](First a question about that: Is that same actor's profile in there the same one in everyone's personal database?
Well, unless someone chooses to add a whole bunch of slightly different ones about the same person I guess.)[/i]
There would be this one "profile" through the movie-database that belongs to that one person.
You have their full name and perhaps some other details, and their default credit-name or maybe an alternate one.
Which in it's turn you could perhaps put in a sort of order like you do with the genres for movies.

Anyway, that's not to say they should be completely locked up, but just optionally editable.
Or perhaps just the credit-name since their real name never changes,
it's not mentioned in the movie anyway, it's who they actually are to identify them.
This way nobody has to worry about that part, it's all filled out and only if the credit-name isn't right it's a minor thing to edit still.

I know the database is for movies, but it might as well have it's own straight-up database
or like sub-database to help the movie-profiles out... you know...
Maybe it should just be a simple list of names which is downloaded to everyone once and that's it.
Until perhaps there is a new actor, then that will be updated quick enough.
But it already kind of looks like this right? Apart from it looking like it only contains names of all added movies, but I'm not sure.


I guess the thing that also confuses me, is that the form for each actor has fields for the full names and optional birthdate.
Yet the whole main actors-list, outside the movie-profiles, is filled with like credit-names, unlike what you can fill into the fields when editing them.
So it looks like they haven't been filled in, as if the editing-part is there for nothing.
Unless that is because nobody cares to fill in the real names and just leaves it as they know them.
Then there's just a difference between the program and the way people use the program.

So it's like, I like to follow the program's options, but it backfires since nothing is filled out
and it feels like I have to fill in the whole actors-list on my own see.
I know I don't have to, but I hope you see what I mean.
There is either something (the actor's editing window) unused in there or unnecessary.
So it's like it contradicts it's own option to a actually profile the actors and actresses.


I'll show an example with a screenshot:
http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u305/DamageIncM/DVDProfilerScreenshot-CastTab.png.


Here you see the cast for 'Armageddon' which I filled out on the right.
I simply look up the actor/character with the button and edit the actor's profile.
But the thing is, the whole list on the left are all credit-names already.
Just basically how people know them (credited), I guess because it's just easier.
Unlike having a person's profile with their alternative credit-names.
Which would simply make more sense.

I guess then it's also to "blame" the users for not filling it out?
Even though it's great they create these movie-profiles, don't get me wrong.
Unless that's not possible to get those names in there through contributions.
That's why it might be handier to just have this fixed list,
which everyone has and everyone can just add the right person where there is only one of.
Editable in the movie-profiles for crediting-purposes, but the correct actor-profiles.
I wouldn't mind contributing them for everyone to use, since I do it anyway,
but I only have "so many" movies, so I could only do a part.


I hope it's a bit clearer after all this blabbering. :D

By the way, I don't mean to criticize, this is just a suggestion or a wondering.
I'm just trying to make it all work too as another user.

Actually I kind of agree with the OP.

I know that IMDB is really hated on here, but I will say that the one thing they got right is that they only list a person once and then all of their aliases. So no matter how they are credited they are credited all on one page.

How long has dvd profiler been around? Years. How long has the credited as/common name been around? At least a year or more.

And yet I find in my local database instances where someone is listed sometimes as many as a dozen times because of variations in how they are credited.

I'm sure I'm like many that just don't have the time to go through all of the name variations of a certain person and then submit that and then find proof that they are the same person by providing proof. And then if you're doing a TV series with multiple credited as/common names to document there isn't enough room to provide all of the proof.

While the general idea of a user-built database is fine and all. This is where it fails because different users will do different things. Contribute strictly as credited, do credited as but use incorrect data to link them. And by doing this it is almost impossible to have one person linked properly

It would be nice if as a community we could all agree on just one name for a cast/crew member and then Ken could provide a filter that would automatically correct it in all profiles.

Quoting EnryWiki:

Quote:
Out of curiosity, how do the IMDb people decide which name is the base form in their db? Most credited?  First entered?  ???

I don't know how they decide that. Maybe they contact the actors. I have seen changes in the common name, but since the ultimate Id is something like nm0001073 it's not as important to them which name is exactly the common name. You can even search for "Anna Mae Bullock".

Then use IMDb, surfeur. No one is going to stop tyou. I will encourage you. They have no standards you can submit whatever you want any way you want...right up your alley.

Skip

I absolutely agree, little Ken.

Skip